Foothill Agrarian

We just returned from our annual camping trip on the Stanislaus River in the Sonora Pass country of the Sierra Nevada.  I realized during our drive into the mountains that I'd spent part of every summer and/or autumn for the last 40+ years in that...

This summer, we're grazing our rams at a neighbor's property about 3/4 of a mile away from our home place.  We try to keep our rams at least a mile away from our ewes until breeding season starts (the ewes are all on leased pasture 3 miles or more...

As regular readers of Foothill Agrarian (all three of you) know, the dogs of Flying Mule Farm (both herding and guarding dogs) play an important role in our operation and in the lives of our family.  I rarely go anywhere without at least one of ou...

I suspect that most folks know Robert Burns by his poem "Auld Lang Syne" - we at least think of the Scottish poet at the end of every year.  I don't know much more about Burns, but as a fan of Scottish music, I've learned a bit about his poetry. &...

Last night, we helped with the 20th annual UC Davis Horse Auction.  Samia and I have been at 19 of the 20 - we missed the auction two years ago when my folks took us all to Hawaii.  I'm having a hard time comprehending the fact that I'm old e...

Last weekend, we started the process of weaning the lambs from their mothers.  The oldest lambs are now about 100 days old - and weighing 70 pounds or more.  By separating them from the ewes, we can put the lambs on our highest quality irriga...

Since early March, I've been managing a number of targeted grazing projects for Prescriptive Livestock Services - a company from eastern Oregon.  These contracts have all been in the Lincoln and Auburn area, and we've used a combination of sheep a...

Perhaps it's the success of the Giants over the last week, but I seem to be on a baseball kick!  In response to my last post, a family friend and fellow auctioneer Steve Scofield (a Red Sox fan who lives in New Hampshire) wrote this:"We could prob...

This will not seem like a farming-related post, but please bear with me.  My friend Dave Pratt, who teaches Ranching for Profit schools throughout North America puts it best - everyone should care deeply about something that's absolutely meaningle...

So we tried a little experiment this week.  We have a handful of 2-3 year old ewes who have never had lambs - for whatever reason, they seem to be infertile, which happens sometimes.  On Monday, we had one of these ewes processed.  Yeste...